United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Milton Koch PROGRAMME THE WAY OUT: MICROHISTORIES OF FLIGHT FROM NAZI GERMANY 24-26 January 2018
Introduction This international conference studies the broad theme of the flight of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in the 1930s and their trajectories during the war and its aftermath from multiple perspectives. In recent years, the microhistorical turn in Holocaust history has placed increasing importance on individual practices and experiences by exploring new, nominative mass sources and combining a prosopographical approach with quantitative analysis of individual trajectories. As Claire Zalc and Tal Bruttmann state in the introduction to Microhistories of the Holocaust (2016): Reducing the level of analysis increases knowledge, because smaller spaces can better elucidate the complexities of decision-making, help reestablish the space of the possible, show how reality was experienced at the individual level, and ultimately provide more compelling insights into the events that contemporaries faced in their day-to-day lives. The micro-level of the individual and the family is a scale of observation that sheds light in a new way on the relationships between Jewish migrants and representatives of state authorities and places individual behaviour in the context of its social and political environment. It enables us to observe migrants in their networks and groups of belonging, trace their biographical and migratory trajectories and identify their agency, the means at their disposal and the opportunities or obstacles that the policy framework allowed them, so that we can identify their spaces of possibility and constraint. Photo: Albert Nussbaum, Director of Transmigration for the American Joint Distribution Committee, poses in the port of Lisbon in front of a wooden fence that cordons off the Jewish refugees who are waiting to board the SS Mouzinho. (June 1941) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Milton Koch The views or opinions expressed on this website, and in the context in which the image is used, do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of, nor imply approval or endorsement by, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Wednesday 24 January 2018 Centre culturel Abbaye de Neumunster, Luxembourg City 19.00 Opening keynote by Dalia Ofer, Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem The historian and his/her protagonists Thursday 25 January 2018 University of Luxembourg, Campus Belval, Maison du Savoir 8:45 Arrival at the Maison du Savoir 9:00 Welcome to all participants by Stéphane Pallage, President of the University of Luxembourg 9:10 Welcome address by Andreas Fickers, Director of the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg 9:30 Introduction to the conference by Denis Scuto, Head of the Research Unit on Contemporary History of Luxembourg at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg 10:00 Keynote address by Claire Zalc (Institut d histoire moderne et contemporaine, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris) Le renouveau des sources dans l étude de la Shoah et les perspectives microhistoriques 10:30 Coffee break 10:45 Panel 1: Methods and sources Moderator: Claire Zalc (Institut d histoire moderne et contemporaine, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris) Christiane Weber (International Tracing Service Arolsen) Individual paths reflected in ITS documents: The fates of displaced persons before and after the emigration to Canada
12:15 Lunch Eric Le Bourhis (Institut des Sciences sociales du Politique, Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, Paris) Loger les réfugiés juifs du Reich. Riga 1938-1941 Antoine Burgard (Université Lumière Lyon 2) Reconstructing trajectories of survival and resettlement through Holocaust orphans visa application files 13:45 Panel 2: Private law and flight Moderator: David Fraser (University of Nottingham) Susanne Bennewitz (Hochschule für Jüdische Studien, Heidelberg) Arranging a marriage for the way out. Marriage fraud and reacting policies in Switzerland Germaine Goetzinger (Centre national de littérature, Luxembourg) Mischehen jüdischer Emigranten in Luxemburg Didier Boden (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) Escape and marriage out of Nazi Germany: Individual destinies from a microhistorical perspective 15:15 Coffee break 15:30 Panel 3: The administrative approach Moderator: Frank Caestecker (Ghent University) Afke Berger (University of Amsterdam) Admitted Rejected. A digital data analysis of Jewish requests for asylum in the Netherlands, 1938-1939 Yaron Jean (University of Haifa and Sapir College, Negev) No way out: Passport hurdles and individual refugee experiences in pre-war Nazi Germany Daniela Gleizer (National Autonomous University of Mexico) When diplomats agency is used against refugees. The case of Mexican Consul Gilberto Bosques and the Jewish refugees in Marseille
17:15 Panel 4: Individual and collective identities Moderator: Dalia Ofer (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Christine Kausch (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster) From individual to collective history: Jewish refugees in the Netherlands (1933-1945) Katharina Seehuber (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München) The Cahnmann family Representative of possible emigration paths Geraldien von Frijtag Drabbe Kunzel (Utrecht University) A foreign country: Concepts of collective and individual identity among German-Jewish refugees in the Netherlands 18:45 Drinks reception 20:00 Official conference dinner Friday 26 January 2018 University of Luxembourg, Campus Belval, Maison du Savoir 9:00 Keynote address by Frank Caestecker (Ghent University) State persecution and protection: the political determinants of the Jewish refugee flow (1933-1948) 9.30 Panel 5: In-between areas Moderator: Susanne Heim (Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München Berlin) Marion Kaplan (New York University) Lives in limbo: The daily lives and feelings of refugee communities in Portugal 1940-45 Katharina Friedla (The International Institute for Holocaust Research Yad Vashem, Jerusalem) Expelled from Germany to Poland Deported by Stalin to Siberia: Polish- Jewish refugees in the Soviet Union during the Second World War Michal Frankl (Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague) Surviving (in) a stateless space. Refugee experience in the No Man s Land
11:00 Coffee break 11:15 Panel 6: The refugee question before the war 12:45 Lunch Moderator: Bob Moore (University of Sheffield/Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Göttingen) Baijayanti Roy (Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main) Pragmatism paves the way? A scholar s adventurous exit from Nazi Germany Ludo Verbist (Kazerne Dossin, Mechelen) The fate of the Jews at the Green Border Renée Wagener Pour des raisons d opportunité: une famille juive en quête de refuge au Luxembourg face à l attitude de l administration 14:00 Keynote address by Susanne Heim (Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München Berlin) Ökonomie der Flucht. Enteignung, Erpressung und Gegenwehr 14:30 Panel 7: Escaping Europe during the war Moderator: Denis Scuto (Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg) Corry Guttstadt and Maria Vassilikou (Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin) A perilous way out of Greece Catrina Langenegger (University of Basel) Refugees and the military in Switzerland 1942-1945 the camps of the Territorial Service through the eyes of the commissioner for refugees Vincent Artuso (Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (University of Luxembourg) Administrating chaos: Albert Nussbaum s role in the organisation of the escape route from Lisbon (August 1940-March 1942)
16:00 Coffee break 16.30 Panel 8: Returning after the war Moderator: Vincent Artuso (Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg) Wolfgang Schmitt-Koelzer (Emil-Frank Institut, Universität Trier) Die NS Arbeitsverwaltung holt die Geflüchteten und Emigranten ein Verfolgung, Zwangsarbeit und Entschädigung am Beispiel Luxemburg Donna Swarthout (CIEE Global Institute, Berlin) Revoked and restored: The German Jewish citizenship experience Angela Boone German Jewish refugees in the Netherlands between 1945 and 1951 18:00 Closing remarks by Bob Moore (University of Sheffield/Lichtenberg- Kolleg, Göttingen) 20:00 Optional informal dinner
University of Luxembourg Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History Belval Campus Maison des Sciences Humaines 11, Porte des Sciences L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette T. +352 / 46 66 44-6247 c2dh@uni.lu www.c2dh.uni.lu